


nothing on kryptonite

by shes_cured



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, Identity Reveal, SuperCorp
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-27
Updated: 2018-01-27
Packaged: 2019-03-10 06:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13496500
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shes_cured/pseuds/shes_cured
Summary: I had to write something inspired by the 3x12 promo. Identity reveal included.This may be the last thing I post due to Monday’s episode possibly killing me, so if that’s not a reason to read this oneshot, what is?





	nothing on kryptonite

She didn't know what a heart attack felt like, but she was pretty sure the tightness in her chest was equivalent to one. She felt like she couldn't breathe, like the world was closing in around her, like she was sitting in a pod and about to lose everything.

She glanced down at Lena and grunted, trying to go faster. She felt tears in her eyes, praying to god she would be okay. If her identity was exposed from flying without her suit it'd be whatever, she would be fine. If Lena wasn't okay, she would not be fine.

Lena's eyes briefly opened and there was a muttered, “Kara?” but only a millisecond was allowed to worry about Lena realizing what was going on, because a second later she was unconscious, her heartbeat getting to be even weaker than it had been before.

Faster.

She flew through the entrance, almost unable to come to a stop in time. She wasn't so sure she had ever flown that fast to get anywhere until then and if the circumstances were different she would have been impressed with herself. The circumstances weren't different, though. They were real and scary and nothing to be impressed with.

“Lena,” she gasped for air, not from exhaustion, but from panic. She frantically looked around, trying to get people to go as fast as she could, because they all seemed so slow. “Lena,” she repeated louder, growing more anxious. “Help Lena!”

“Okay,” Alex rushed over, trying to calm her down as she stormed to the med bay. “What happened?”

“I don't know,” she growled. “She was just – she wasn't conscious and – I don't know, Alex, you're the one who had medical expertise! She was poisoned, I don't – I – I don't–”

Her sister was caught off guard at her panic, but Kara didn't know why. It was Lena. She was her best friend, she was her go to person, she was Lena. She needed Lena by her side.

“I got her,” Alex tried to get her to breathe. “She'll be okay.”

Kara watched as more people entered the room. Her sister went to hug her, but she was quickly pushed away.

“No, no, her,” she was stammering. “Fix her first.”

Never in her life had she been so worried for someone's safety. She stood by the door, her eyes wide and pleading for someone to speak up, to say that Lena was fine. As seconds turned into minutes she got more and more nervous, standing outside the door with anxious eyes.

Finally, after days (forty-seven minutes), Alex looked up with relief. She gave a small nod, her eyes promising. “She's okay.”

Kara took a deep breath, trying to take that in. “She's okay?”

“Yeah,” her sister assured her. “We got her. Winn pieces together an antidote. All it is now is waiting for her to wake up.”

“But she will?” Kara double checked. “She will wake up? Guaranteed?”

Alex stared for a moment, then came back to Earth and went back to being the reassuring big sister. “I am one-hundred percent sure. She's okay, Kara. You saved her.”

* * *

 

She was frozen.

Lena had woken up – she'd woken up hours ago, actually – but Kara was afraid to face her.

When Alex went to see her after she first woke, she told Kara to wait outside until after she verified everything was officially okay. Kara had looked on, watching Alex perform basic vitals and a series of questions.

“Do you know where you are?” Alex asked.

Lena looked around, then caught eye of Kara dressed as Supergirl. She tore her eyes away, then motioned towards her. “I'm assuming the DEO?”

“Yeah,” Alex took a deep breath, looking at Kara as well for the moment of truth. “Supergirl found you. She brought you here as quick as she could.”

The second the name was out of her lips, Lena gave a short laugh. It wasn't bitter, but it was definitely short lived. “You mean Kara?”

Alex tried to brush it off. She tried to make it into a joke about all of that being a dream and she tried to play dumb, but at the end of the day Lena had briefly woken up mid-air sitting in Kara's arms as she shot them through the clouds. Even Kara couldn't think of an explanation for that.

So, that led to where she was now. Outside that room. Frozen. Unable to check on her, unable to wish her well, unable to do anything but stare from afar, because she wasn't ready to know what Lena had to say about Supergirl – about her.

“I'm doing her hourly vitals,” her sister whizzed by. “Come with.”

She stayed frozen.

She watched Alex glide into the room, making a quick stop to put on gloves. Lena peeled her eyes away from the ceiling to look towards the door, but looked away again when she saw it was Alex.

“I'm just here for vitals.”

“Of course,” Lena gave a polite smile.

Alex made her way to the right side of her, taking off her stethoscope from around her neck.

Lena glanced to the door, but when she met Kara's eye she turned away quicker than ever. She was silent for a moment, letting the cool flat surface of the stethoscope rest on her chest, but then she couldn't hold it in.

Her voice echoed through Kara's mind, low as she quickly glanced to Kara, then back to the ceiling. “Is she ever going to come in here?”

Kara didn't mean to listen in, but she needed to keep hearing her voice. If she couldn't personally talk to her, she needed to listen to her heartbeat, her breathing, and especially her voice when people went in to visit her.

Alex pulled away the stethoscope, following her gaze before returning to focus on Lena. “She doesn't know how to face you.”

She watched as Lena slowly nodded, a deep breath coming out of her. “Is she ever going to?”

Alex glanced over to her, tilting her head in confusion. Kara's heart dropped at how insecure she sounded.

“Face me,” Lena clarified. “Is she ever going to?”

Alex let out a heavy sigh, nodding her head with a confidence Lena no longer appeared have. Kara tore her eyes away, busying herself with fiddling with her fingers. She had been awake for thirteen hours and Kara had been pacing back and forth for all thirteen of them, but it wasn't because she planned to leave her, she just had to brace herself for the possibility of Lena leaving her.

“She doesn't cope well with the people she loves being angry with her,” Alex tried to explain.

Lena swallowed a thick lump in her throat, giving a small shrug. “It's just me.”

Alex laughed, shaking her head. “You've never been just you to my sister. She cares about you more than anyone had even imagined – and we all knew she cared a lot before this,” Alex wrapped the stethoscope back around her neck, looking at the machines and recording her vitals. When Lena didn't answer, she took it as a cue to continue. “I've seen her worried for a lot of people. There have been a lot of close calls, it's nothing new, but no one compared to how terrified she was when she brought you here.”

Once again, Lena tried to smile, but it was tight. Forced. Fake. They met eyes again, then turned away again.

“She didn't have to risk her identity for me,” she proclaimed.

To that, she received a hard stare. “I told her the same. But she was pretty adamant that she did.”

There was a heavy sigh, then Lena sunk further into her pillows. She turned onto her side so that her back was facing the door, holding out her arm straight as to not interfere with the IV.

“Well, tell her she knows where to find me.”

* * *

“That girl,” Alex announced as she came out of the room again an hour later, “needs to see you.”

Kara faced the window again, her face falling at the sight of Lena laying on the bed. She looked so tiny. So frail and helpless, yet so strong and powerful. If she was angry with her it would be more than Kara could take.

“I'll see her,” she dismissed it.

Alex finally shook her head, not letting her by with that answer. She pulled Kara aside, motioning for her to sit in an empty chair as she did the same. “She needs to see you, Kara.”

Tears came to her eyes and she willed to hold them back. She took deep breaths, trying to control herself. She was fine. She was absolutely fine. She wasn't picturing Lena foaming and she wasn't thinking about how close they had come to losing her. No, she wasn't thinking about that.

“She knows,” she fumbled with her glasses. “How am I supposed to face her when she knows, but I didn't tell her?”

Alex didn't have an immediate answer.

“I was supposed to tell her, Alex. It wasn't supposed to be like this.”

“But it is,” was all the comfort she got. “She doesn't seem mad.”

“But she might be.”

The words hung in the air, because there was no way to possibly deny them.

Alex stared at her with a pity that Kara understood. She usually hated that look, but right about now she was pitying herself too. Lena deserved better. It was a fact. She deserved better.

“I haven't seen you that upset before,” Alex murmured quietly, causing Kara to look down at the memory. “When you came in here you were more panicked than Mon El, even.”

“I have never been that scared,” she confessed the truth. “I still am. That was so close. And I could handle losing anyone else, but Lena… that'd be almost as bad as losing you.”

Alex seemed to be taken aback by those words, but eventually she took a deep breath of acceptance. “That's a big statement.”

Kara finally faced her, tears still in her eyes at the thought of her almost dying, the thought of needing to fly through sky as Kara Danvers in order to save her. It took less than a second to change into her suit, but she didn't think about that. All she thought about was what if a second was too long? Seeing Lena in that condition meant every second was valuable.

“The last time I was that scared was when your plane was crashing.”

For a moment, the words were so soft that she wasn't sure Alex could hear them, but when they settled into the air she almost looked pained for her. “Mon El?”

“That was scary – really scary, actually,” she agreed. “But it was nothing compared to seeing Lena in that shape.”

“Are you still planning to move on from him?” Alex asked. “Are we still closing that chapter?”

Kara put on a soft smile, glancing to Lena and listening to her heavy breathing. “Yeah. It's closed.”

There was silence, then there was Alex sounding uncharacteristically timid and unsure of if she should be saying what she was saying. “I’m a government agent – I solve puzzles for a living. I'm going to ask you something and you might get mad at me for it.”

She turned her attention back away from the comfort of Lena's heavy breaths and grimaced. “Is now really a good time for that?”

“I think it's the perfect time,” she fought.

Kara gave a resigned nod, motioning for her to continue.

Alex’s eyes darted away for a moment, then came back with that same amount of uncertainty. “When you flew in here you nearly missed the entrance and flew through the wall. You were in tears due to being so worried.”

She didn't want to relive that, but nodded nonetheless. “Yeah.”

“You were more concerned about losing her than you were Mon El. And when you did lose Mon El, you went back to opening up to her before you did with anyone else,” she narrated the past few months. “Then, she told you – or J’onn – that she had kissed James, and that same night you realized it was time to be done with Mon El.”

Suddenly, Kara saw where this was going. She wanted to abort mission, she wanted to run – maybe even fly – from the conversation, but instead she listened. She saw the question coming.

“You trust her with your soul. You're terrified to lose her. Even now that she's okay, you're scared to face her, because you don't know if she'll want to end the friendship,” she continued.

Silence settled in as Kara crossed her arms over her chest. She subconsciously slouched, her shoulders hunching over from wanting to curl up into a ball and disappear on the spot. She knew she liked Lena. She had known for a while now. But it wasn't important. It wasn't worth sharing. No one else had to know, because if they knew it'd make the fact that she loved someone who didn't love her back real. Right now it was just in her head.

“I know you pretty well, and I feel like there's something more here,” Alex slowly articulated, her voice gentle as if Kara might break into pieces on the spot. “Do you like her?”

She tried to force a laugh, but it didn't come out nearly as convincing as she had hoped. “Of course not. You're looking too far into things. Me getting over Mon El has nothing to do with Lena kissing James. I'm the one who told her to go for it.”

“I know you are. I know,” Alex hastily assured her. Then, her words began to come out slow again. “You told her you were fine with it, but you're also the most selfless person I know. Was that ‘okay’ you being happy for her, or you being selfless?”

Kara had every intention to lie and keep denying that Alex had a point, but her words were trapped inside, her lies were too big to be able to crawl out of her throat. So, instead of answering, she sat there, leaning back on her chair and looking anywhere else but Alex. She kept urging herself to speak, but she also knew her voice would quiver if she did. She'd rather stay silent than cry.

“When I came out to you, it was the hardest thing I ever had to do,” Alex proclaimed with candor, her gaze still tender and focused directly on Kara. “I'm not saying I'm right, and I'll take whatever you say about this at face value, but my point of bringing it up was to say that if you're ever in the same boat – if you're ever afraid of that…” she closed her eyes, then continued with a desperation for Kara to hear her, “just tell me. Don't be as scared as I was, because I will accept you with open arms.”

Kara thought about her response carefully. There were so many things she could say, she had so many options, but none of those came out. Her body betrayed her as her breathing became unsteady. Her voice shook.

“Even if it’s Lena?”

Alex took a deep breath, getting up off of her own chair and moving to stand behind her. She wrapped her arms around Kara, her voice coming out in a near whisper. “I want you to be happy. And if that's with Lena, I am all for it.”

She quickly wiped her eyes, trying to steady herself. “You'd trust her?”

“Not as blindly as you do, no. But… yeah. I'd trust her,” she promised. “If she makes you happy, she makes me happy.”

Kara turned, looking up at a blurry version of her sister due to the water that was clouding her vision. “I don't know how to do this.”

“You have me,” Alex assured her. “You always have me. But you'll get no where if you don't talk to her.”

She looked at the window where Lena was now laying on her back again, her eyes closed.

“What if things aren't the same?”

“They won't be,” Alex broke the news. “She just found out you have a whole other identity, so they probably won't be the same after all of this. But maybe they’ll be better.”

Her voice was small, weak, inferior. “Better?”

“Yeah,” the arms that were wrapped around her squeezed her tighter. “Hopefully they'll be better.”

* * *

Kara hesitated, standing at the door, watching Lena's back as it rose and fell with her breaths. She didn't want to wake her, she didn't want to talk to her, she certainly didn't want to lose her, but she also had to face her.

She quietly entered the room, going to sit next to her on the bed. Her movement was filled with hesitation and uncertainty, but she moved closer regardless, stretching out her legs to be next to Lena's, letting her back rest against the pillow when Lena moved over on the bed.

Her heartbeat had fully changed, so she knew she had woken up, but she didn't turn to face her. It took a few minutes for that low voice to come out raspy and defeated.

“So… Supergirl.”

Raspy and defeated was better than enraged and betrayed.

“Yeah…” Kara nodded, taking a deep breath. “Supergirl.”

She both watched and heard the loud sigh Lena emitted, her entire body filling then emptying. “Should've known.”

She didn't know what to say to that. She pursed her lips as Lena readjusted their position, subtly scooting closer to Kara. This time it was her turn to sigh as she wrapped an arm around the girl who had just proven she wasn't nearly as invincible as Kara would like her to be.

“I was so scared,” Kara found herself repeating the truth.

Lena finally rolled over, her neck cozying up to Kara's arm as she let out a small smile and short nod. She looked up earnestly. “Me too. But when I saw it was you who was flying me… it was surprising, to say the least, but I knew…”

When she trailed off again, they sat in silence until she gained the ability to finish.

“The minute I saw it was you and put the pieces together, I was a thousand times more confident I'd be okay than if I had woken up in mid-air with Supergirl.”

That made her smile. Those weren't words of anger, but rather comfort. It was entirely unexpected, but more than welcome.

“Thank you for saving me, Kara,” Lena gave her a warm smile, but there was still hurt in her eyes that Lena would hate knowing was visible.

Kara further wrapped her in her arms around, her words slurring together with pure affection. “I told you I'd protect you always.”

Her eyes squinted with a confusion that broke Kara's heart. “I'm not sure why you would go that far, to be honest. I mean, I love you, but flying without a suit… you didn't need to risk Supergirl just to save me.”

Kara broke their eye contact and leaned her head so that her cheek could rest on top of Lena's head. It sometimes hurt to hear how little Lena thought she was. She was this giant dent in the entire universe, yet she saw herself as a mere cosmetic scratch. Kara had powers. That was luck. Every miraculous thing Lena had ever done she had earned.

She couldn't voice all of that without portraying how much Lena truly meant to her, so instead she rubbed a hand back and forth across her arm in reassurance. Instead of professing how immensely important Lena was to the world, she repeated what had somehow become their slogan.

“That's what friends are for.”

“No,” she didn't hesitate to defy her. “That wasn't being a friend. That was being a hero.”

Kara's lips curved into a smile as she breathed in this moment. It was dreary, but it had been a while since they’d had such a serious conversation.

“You really are my hero.”

She let out a breath of contentment at that. “It's what I do best.”

“Not Supergirl. Kara Danvers,” she clarified, pulling them apart to look at one another again. Her emerald eyes burned from intensity. “Kara Danvers is my hero.”

She grinned at the pure words, her lips briefly touching Lena's forehead. “I’ll always do whatever I can to save you.”

“Next time suit up, though,” Lena ordered, looking away again and leaning her weight on Kara. “I love so many things about you, but your selflessness is overwhelming.”

She peered out at Alex, briefly watching as she talked to Winn. Yeah. Her selflessness was something, alright.

/////

An hour later, the two of them weren't saying anything. They were sitting in a comfortable silence. Lena had her eyes closed, but wasn't fully asleep yet and Kara was simply breathing her in.

She’s okay. Lena is okay. Lena’s okay. Look, she's okay.

That's all her mind could play on repeat, because she had never been that close to losing someone she cared for in the way she cared for Lena.

“Hey,” James softly knocked on the door. He came in, his voice tender.

Lena slowly blinked, opening her eyes with a smile. “Mr. Olsen.”

Kara wanted to bolt out of the room right then and there.

“I was there when Kara found you,” he sighed, walking further in. “I was so worried about you.”

Green eyes glanced up, meeting hers with that same intensity. “Somehow Supergirl is always right around the corner.”

“Always,” Kara repeated, pulling them apart from one another and reluctantly standing up. “I'm gonna go find Alex.”

“Oh, you don't have to go,” Lena protested.

Kara looked to James who didn't appear to mind her presence as well, but she shook her head. Some things she didn't want to be around for. “I'll see you guys later.”

“Sneak me in some potstickers?” Lena looked up with innocent eyes.

Her heart melted every time she saw that look. “Of course. Have a good time, guys.”

Her smile wasn't a smile. Her sincerity wasn't sincere. Her encouragement wasn't encouragement.

Alex looked up as she walked out, her expression falling. She glanced back to James who was now sitting on that same bed. Instead of consoling words, Alex just came to embrace her once again. Before Lena came around, her hugs were the most comforting thing to exist.

“You okay?” she asked.

Kara looked up, her eyes heartbroken and smile sad. “He's good for her.”

“Kara–”

“He's good,” Kara nodded to herself, confirming that with herself. “She's happy.”

Alex looked back to the med bay with sorrow. “You never know–”

“She's been waiting for someone to make her happy,” Kara spoke with devastation. “And James… he might not be me, which hurts, but he makes her happy, Alex.”

Her sister analyzed her, then she laced their arms around one another, leading Kara to the entrance.

“I love you, you know? Even that annoying selflessness.”

Kara's laugh was airy, but at least it was a laugh. “I know. I love you too.”

But suddenly she was that girl talking to Cat Grant in her office again. Suddenly she was moping and lost and felt beyond broken again. Suddenly she wondered if love really wasn't in the cards for her.

She thought nothing could top Mon El’s absence, but she was mistaken. Lena being present, but not in the way she wanted outdid sending him away by far. She hadn't felt this sort of pain in a long time – perhaps not since she was thirteen.

It was easier when that's what friends are for wasn't a substitute for I love you, because to Lena, it still meant thats what friends are for. There was no substitute to her..

She glanced back one last time, trying to figure out how these feelings started and how to make them stop. Lex may have went after Superman, but Lena was suffocating a Super without even trying, without even knowing she was.

Kryptonite had nothing on Lena Luthor.


End file.
